Created during the New Order as a means to ensure political control of Indonesia's bureaucracy, with all public sector workers obliged to join, KORPRI also functioned as a support mechanism to Golkar, the ruling party of the period.

With the emergence of political pluralism in the reformasi period of the late 1990s, KORPRI lost its status as sole organisation within the public sector with the formation of independent trade unions.

With the consolidation of the New Order dictatorship by the late 1960s, KORPRI was established by Presidential decree in November 1971, bringing all civil servants into an "organizational framework...totally controlled" by the Minister of Home Affairs, General Amirmachmud.

[4] KORPRI was integrated into Golkar, the organization founded by the military in 1964,[5] and developed as an important force in ensuring that political parties unaligned to the government had no influence at village and sub–district levels.

Independent unions emerged in sectors previously covered by KORPRI, including electricity, postal services, telecommunications and teaching.